


Don't Tell Him It's Me

by Missy



Category: Cupid and Psyche - Apuleius, Greek and Roman Mythology, Hellenistic Religion & Lore
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Hollywood, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Banter, Coming of Age, Dancing, F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Gender or Sex Swap, Happy Ending, Hollywood, Humor, Lies, Meet-Cute, Mild Injuries, Milkshakes, Protagonist Switches, Role Reversal, Stage Moms, Temporary Amnesia, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 19:08:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18784354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: Monty Swann is Hollywood's hottest new thing - a good kid who's all too aware that his ascendance has resulted in the studio's biggest star, Steve Whale, being shoved aside and into sexless uncle roles so the studio can push Monty.  But with his smothering but loving stage mom shoving him into the spotlight, Monty forces himself to keep his head down and do his best.That's one thing Clarinda, Steve's niece, is determined not to do. Outraged that Wolf Pictures has all but retired her Uncle, she takes a risk and sneaks onto the set of Monty's latest picture to give him a piece of her mind.  That, unfortunately, leads to Monty losing a piece of his - head clonking against the trunk of a palm tree thanks to a shove from Clarinda, Monty's left with a temporary case of amnesia - and only the vague memory of a beautiful girl hovering over him to guide his actions.When Monty insists that Clarinda - "the red-headed angel", as he calls her - is his girlfriend, she doesn't fight against the impression.  Now her Uncle Steve is back on the lot, Clarinda's star is rising, and Monty and Clarinda are falling in love over milkshakes and games of checkers.  But what will happen when Monty gets his memory back?





	Don't Tell Him It's Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blue_ringed_octopus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_ringed_octopus/gifts).



His mother’s voice was a cloying trill as she threw open the door dividing their suites. “Monty, darling! Someone’s sent you more flowers!” She struggled under the weight of the arrangement – it was pure blue, white and red; roses, tulips and carnations. 

Montgomery Swann sighed as he straightened his tie and glanced over his shoulder at the enormous bouquet of flowers his mother had carried into the room. “Twenty dozen more. Gee, it’s like these girls are crankin’ ‘em out in their own basements!” 

“I don’t care if they’ve growing ‘em in their hair!. It’s just more proof that they love you!” 

“Really? Aww, that’s swell.” Monty bent his head over the flowers and took a prolonged sniff. “Hey, do you think we can donate ‘em to the children’s hospital? They’re really pretty but I don’t want Graciella to worry overmuch with caring for ‘em.” He tilted his head. “Do you think that’s okay?”

Mother Swann let out a cackling laugh. “Baby, they’re going to think you’re the second coming of Saint Francis. There’s no way you can do wrong with the lot of them.” 

Monty finished slicking back his hair with pomade, comb running along his scalp and making light furrows in the dark red mass of it. He didn’t dare meet his mother’s shrewd look. He loved her very much, but he was also aware of the fact that she was blatantly enjoying the studio’s favors. Part of him was enjoying them, too. Everyone was in love with Montgomery Swann – he was America’s new Valentine, and he was making them millions only two pictures into a ten-picture contract with Wolf Pictures. 

Meanwhile, Monty felt like something was missing, but he couldn’t rightfully say what that thing was.

His comb and pomade returned to the living room table, his mother approached, put down the flowers, smiled, and straightened the seams of his letterman sweater. “Remember, we’ve gotta be at our best when we’re out there hoofing.”

“ _Me?_ ” Monty asked.

She slapped him on his shoulders, hard enough to make Monty grunt. “Sure, you! Just shine and do your best, okay baby?” his mother asked, bending to pick up the flowers again with a grunt.

“Okay, ma,” Monty nodded. His eyes trained on the basket of flowers as she carried it toward the door, waiting for a porter to take them to the lobby. Suddenly, he said, “Gee. I don’t think it’s fair, y’know. Steve Whale’s been the king of this studio for years. How’s someone like me ever gonna fill his shoes?”

Monty’s mother laughed, shoving the door open with her behind. “Honey, you’re far too petite to fill Steve’s shoes,” she said, and made her exit. 

 

 

****

**~~**************************************************************************~~**

 

 

“Why, of all of the horse pucky!” The newspaper slapped the young woman’s knees and she tucked her hands to her waist. “I can’t believe it! Taking a top-of-the-heap star like you and making him play second-fiddle to that…BOY. “

“Dear,” Steve Whale said, puffing on his Chesterfield as he slumped in his maroon easy chair at the opposite end of the living room, “he’s four years older than you.”

“Well, he looks younger. Unbaked! Like the Pillsbury Dough Boy!” She bounced to her feet. “They can’t beat us. We’ll lick ‘em yet, Uncle Steve! We just need to put our heads together and figure out how to get rid of him.”

Clarinda Whale, pacing at the edge of her uncle’s overstuffed velvet sofa, was the only thing in her uncle’s suite that hadn’t seen better days. Everything about Steve Whale’s humble abode screamed 1920s soignée glamour, from the fading oriental rugs on the floor to the old master artwork that had been gifted, so he told his niece repeatedly, by a Romanov countess he had entertained for several months. It had survived four wives, over fifty films, and now the angry trouncing of his ward. 

Steve Whale looked up from his bottle of wine – which he’d been pulling from all afternoon without breaks for solid food - and let out a low growl. “Stop pacing. You’re giving me the whirligigs.” 

Clarinda stopped moving. “I’m sorry. I just hate what they’re doing to you.”

Steve sighed heavily. “To every actor there is a season. I don’t believe mine has passed, but I look ghastly next to some of these young things. Just imagine me pitching woo to Lauren Bacall!” He puckered his lips, crossed his eyes, shaking his head. 

“And why not?” asked Clarinda. “You’re younger than Mister Barrymore, and he…”

“Well, I’m no Barrymore.” He took the bottle of wine he’d bee tippling from by the neck and got up from his chair. “But if you feel so strongly…well, you could always go talk to Monty. He’s your age.”

Clarinda pouted. Though her uncle had tried to promote her as a new, rising starlet, she often found her increasingly-dwindling time on movie sets being reduced to getting her uncle coffee with a dash of ‘something extra’, or running boxes of chocolates to his latest paramour. “Just because he’s my age doesn’t mean he’ll listen to me.” After all, she was nobody, on set or off, except when in the nest of her family.

“You never know, my dear. One never does know.” And then he disappeared into his room, into the haze of cigarettes and alcohol which had rolled over to consume him like a fog ever since the his agent had stopped returning his calls.

Clarinda stood alone in the mess of the living room. Most of the chores had fallen to her between college classes – tighter purse strings meant firing her uncle’s maid. She emptied cigarette trays and washed glasses, straightened the cushions and cleaned the counter. All the while she dreamed of the heat of a spotlight on her makeup-coated cheeks, of fan slicks filled with her own pictures. As deeply as she idolized her uncle’s talent, she did have a hope hidden in her heart that someday…

Oh, what was the use of wishes? They wouldn’t get her uncle back to where he needed to be, and they wouldn’t get her out of Math 101. As she reentered the living room, her eyes fell on the box that had been brought in from Bergdorf’s that morning; a rare treat allowed by a small gambling windfall that her uncle refused to explain. She stared at the doorway, biting her bottom lip. Well, cowards never got what they needed out of life, did they?

She seized the box from the back of the couch and took it to her room. Inside lay the single-piece bathing suit in fire engine red that she’d bought in the hope of attracting modeling jobs. It was cheap rayon, but she wouldn’t look any different from the other girls who were going to be in the chorus of the beach scene of the new Monty Swann picture that was shooting down the street in a few hours.

Fortune did indeed favor the bold, she decided.

 

 

****

**~~**************************************************************************~~**

 

 

“So then he slid a frog down my back! Well, I just screamed my head off!” Monty leapt back to life at his mother’s honking laugh. He had finished all of the close-up shots required for the beach scenes of his latest picture, _The Swinging Swimmer_ , and all he had left to do was finish the big production number, where he’d have to lipsync a song about how the beach was jumping with hep kittens in a carefully-approved-by-the-censors bathing suit. Monty was nervous; he didn't DANCE, not really, only as a casual fun thing in his private time. The truth was he'd stomped on more toes than a pro wrestler.

“All right! Places everyone!” The director, CB – orange-haired and tall, and almost always referring to himself in the third person. “Roll for speed! Playback!” Monty watched his mother scamper away from the sight line of the camera. “And…action!”

Monty knew by heart the four steps he needed to do. He understood the lyrics, and he knew the girls’ roles – they had to dance in formation beside him. He would flirt with each one. And that’s how it went – from the blonde girl with the frog in her hair, and the one with the platinum roots with a high pitched giggle, and the girl with the cute smile….and the redhead who was glaring at him.

Whoa. She was pretty. And looked really familiar. Where in the world had he seen her before?

Forcing his smile into place, Monty kept dancing, like he was trying to tap the corners of a large box with the tips of his toes. One foot in front of the other in jazz time, while flipping girls over his shoulder and avoiding tripping in the sand. By the time he got to the redhead, she sandbagged him, and – struggling under her centered weight – she landed across his back with a thud.

“Cut!” someone shouted. Probably the director. Monty couldn’t tell, from the ringing in his ears.

“I need to talk to you.” This from a more feminine voice – the redhead, who was sitting in a heap beside him. 

Manners kicked in. “Aww, geesh, I’m sorry I fell on you!” Monty said. He was on his feet and he was helping her up. 

“Monty, baby! Are you okay!” His mother took a step forward, “do you need to have that girl fired?”

“Ma!” Monty said. 

“It’s a perfectly reasonable question,” she said, and glared daggers at the redhead.

“Come on. We could go over by those trees where it's quiet?” Monty suggested to the girl.

CB threw up his hands. “CB needs a new reel anyway. Take five, company.”

“Sure,” the redhead said, and pulled away from Monty's sheltering arm.

 

 

****

**~~**************************************************************************~~**

 

 

They walked far enough away from the rest of the crew that the scattered filmmakers looked like tiny ants. Clarinda was a bundle of anxious anger – she marched straight ahead, hands tucked into her sides. 

“Are you really okay?” Monty asked. 

She frowned. “You’ve gotta be a real dumbbell,” she said. He tilted his head, “I’m here because my uncle is Steve Whale,” she said, the words rushing out of her like a balloon running out of air.

“Oh! Oh wait, lady!” he blurted out, and again took her by the shoulders, “all of this stuff the studio’s doing ain’t my idea! I love your uncle’s work! You’ve gotta believe me!”

The only thing that Clarinda was aware of was the fact that she was being touched against her will. “Get your hands off of…” And then she was shoving him. And as he fell over, his head connected with one of the palm trees standing tall and strong behind them.

The thud his head made when it connected with the tree was thoroughly frightening.

An involuntary shriek came from her. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him! “Help! Somebody!” she yelled, rushing away in the opposing direction, back toward the crew, who rushed toward her like accusatory shadows.

 

 

****

**~~**************************************************************************~~**

 

 

“Young lady, you are fired!”

“Brother, believe me, I know!” Clarinda paced the hospital hallway, feeling foolish in her bathing suit, raining sand on the floor with her violent movements. “I promise I didn’t mean to hurt him,” she said to CB. “He was just trying to make me listen to sense, but I pushed him on his back. Only his back was connected to a head that bashed right into a tree trunk.” Monty’s mother let up a wail and clutched at the lace-trimmed handkerchief she’d been blotting her eyes with ever since they’d loaded an unconscious but alive Monty into the back of the ambulance. It was only fair that Clarinda had been reamed out by everyone – CB, the DP, the assistant producer. Her name was mud, and Clarinda would feel horrible if she weren’t thoroughly distracted by Monty’s fate. He really had been such a nice guy...

“CB would like to believe you, but the proof’s in the concussion, baby,” said CB.

Just then a grey-haired nurse – serious and starched – arrived and paused in the doorway. She adjusted her navy cape, then her spectacles. “You’ll be happy to know that Mr. Swann is awake.”

A sigh of relief echoed through the room. “Can I see him?” Monty’s mother asked.

“Well, he _is_ asking for someone,” the nurse said. She looked at Clarinda. “Would you be the red-haired angel?” she asked.

Clarinda cleared her throat and almost choked on the chewing gum she’d been frantically chomping. “Sure!” she said. 

“He’s been asking for you. In fact, you’re the only person he wants to see,” the nurse said.

“What?! That’s impossible!” Monty’s mother said.

“I’m sorry, but it’s true. A doctor will be by to tell you more about his condition, and since you’re his next of kin I’m sure you’ll be in to see him soon. But he’s being so insistent that we can’t quiet him down, so seeing this woman might help. Miss?” She extended her hand in Clarinda’s direction. 

Clarinda awkwardly got to her feet, sandals squishing against the cement floor as she followed the nurse. Past the open ward, into an elevator, and past a long string of rooms to the finest suite in the whole hospital. There, Monty lay, staring at the ceiling.

When he saw her face, he broke into a huge grin.

“Red!” he said.

“Hello,” said Clarinda, sounding like a foghorn in the quiet ward.

“I’ll leave the two of you alone,” the nurse said. Clarinda didn't even notice as she slipped out the door that she was alone with Monty.

Completely alone.

Clarinda felt her palms grow wet.

Monty spread his arms wide open. “Whatcha waiting for? Give me a hug!”

Clarinda tried to move toward him in a natural manner but felt like a mannequin. She bent over the bed and wrapped her arms around him and was bear-hugged. 

It took Monty awhile to let go, and when he did she straightened up so quickly she tweaked her back. Laughing nervously, she said, “do the doctors say you’re going to be okay?”

“Oh sure! For a guy with amnesia, I’m doing just fine!”

“That’s great to…wait, amnesia?” Clarinda asked. Horror filled her body, her stomach plummeting to her knees.

“Yep! I don’t really remember who I am. But I remember looking up and seeing you yelling for help while I was lying on the ground. I knew right away you had to mean something special to me.”

Clarinda hoped her smile wasn’t blatantly queasy as she battled to keep her gorge down. Poor Monty. He didn’t even know who he was anymore.

He didn’t remember. But he still had power – enough power to make her Uncle an important man again and save him from the bottom of the bottle. “I am,” she said suddenly, and felt a wave of regret but eagerly plunged on. “I’m your girlfriend,” she said. “We’ve been going together for a few months now!”

His eyes immediately lit up. “That’s sensational!”

“So is your new movie! And my uncle – he needs a sensational job right now.” She regretted her forwardness instantly, but who knew how long Monty would be out of a memory?

Monty’s brows knit together. “What kind of job?”

“Well, he’s an actor –a fine actor of upstanding reputation,” she said, the lie rolling over her tongue like a suffocating blanket of processed cheese “But he’s been getting older, and the studio doesn’t want to hire him for big parts anymore.”

Monty frowned. “Well, that’s not right at all!”

“You can help!” Clarinda said, a hair too eagerly. “You happen to be very important! Why, you’re the most popular actor I know!” Those words tasted sour in the back of her throat. “And you’re both under contract to the same studio.”

“So you want me to get him a good acting job on a picture?" She nodded. "Aww gee, that’d be great. I could work with my best gal's uncle!” Clarinda almost bit the inside of her cheek as she frantically nodded. Monty leaned back into his pillows with a satisfied grunt. “Boy, I’m beat. Say, maybe you could come back later? I wanna play some checkers.”

Were people with concussions supposed to sleep? Clarinda didn't know, but she did know she wasn’t a total monster. “I will,” she promised.

“And I’ll call the studio,” he said, yawning as she rushed away. “As soon as I figure out where that is.”

Clarinda smiled over her shoulder and waved at that statement. She could play a few games of cards with Monty, some checkers, to keep up the charade. And who knew? Maybe they’d come out the other end as friends.

 

 

****

**~~**************************************************************************~~**

 

 

“Off to Monty’s again?” Uncle Steve’s voice was arch and filled with humor, but it was blessedly clearheaded as Clarinda grabbed her checkerboard from the bottom living room shelf. 

“Yep,” she said, continuing to push aside books and move knickknacks to find her box of checkers. “How’s your script coming?”

“Well enough, but I know most of it by heart already. I always did want to play Falstaff,” he said, and tapped the mantle with the heavily annotated pink pages. A cloud of dust didn't rise up with the action, and Clarinda felt a wave of pride - their apartment had become noticeably cleaner, mostly because Uncle Steve had gotten enough pep back in his step to help Clarinda out with the chores. Everything had gotten better since Monty had stuck his neck out for Steve with the head of Wolf Studios for them - and while Uncle Steve carefully turned down Monty's offer to play Uncle Pep in _Make Mine Keen,_ he accepted a chance to work on an adaption of _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ with Olivier. “I’d thought you’d called off this dull little affair by now.”

Clarinda’s spine stiffened. As grateful as Uncle Steve had been for Monty's help, he hadn't been entirely kind about her new relationship with Monty. To be fair, even Clarinda had no idea what was going on with the two of them. Somewhere along the line, as Monty’s injuries lessened but his memory stayed stubbornly locked away, she’d become fond of him. Somewhere along the line she’d come to enjoy their afternoons together, even begun to look forward to them after long mornings in college and evenings toiling at the studio. When they had time off, she and Monty spent long hours reading together, or dancing, or playing checkers. Sometimes they listened to the radio, and sometimes they talked about scripts he wanted to do. He’d gone back to filming two weeks after his accident and had four movies completed. His total recall was sharp enough to recall the last few months, but refused to deliver the distant past to him. 

The studio was delighted. They didn’t need to worry about him getting sassy about being underpaid.

But that would depend on him regaining his memory. And if he did that...

“I don’t know,” she said. “I feel…well, I feel funny about leaving him now. I don’t want to leave him alone with that mother of his.” She shuddered. Mrs. Swann was a smothering nightmare. It took everything she had to convince the woman to run off for the afternoon and leave Monty alone with Clarinda most days, and they always returned to her suspiciousness, her complaints.

“My maids raised you better than this, Clarinda,” said Uncle Steve. “Do not string that boy along and break his heart.”

“I’m not stringing him along.” She finally found the box of checkers and waved them triumphantly. “And what are you complaining about? Monty got you a part in a major movie.”

“No part is worth your dignity. That’s a lesson you should have learned when I rejected that awful Shirley Temple film.”

“You would’ve made a fine Mister Twinkle,” Clarinda laughed, pecking his wrinkled cheek on the way out the door.

 

 

****

**~~**************************************************************************~~**

 

 

Monty waited on his doorstep for her, feeling happy enough to whistle, hands jammed into the pockets of his corduroys. Seeing Clarinda marching toward him, her long red hair perfectly shiny and bouncing in the breeze, made him feel glad all over. He couldn’t really remember how they met, or why he’d fallen in love with her – just that they had, by some great, grand miracle had occured to put them together. He heard a whole orchestra whenever he saw her. And the way his heart leapt every time they danced together made his heart leap in his chest.

Miraculously, she was even making him a better dancer.

“Hey, Clarinda! How about we go to the malt shop and have a milkshake instead of sticking around here?”

Her eyes lit up. “That sounds amazing!”

Monty grinned and got up, and together they left his yard and rushed to the malt shop, stopping every few blocks so he could sign an autograph or shake a hand. How weird it was to be a celebrity? He could barely remember filming the movies he’d done before the accident. His memory was just honestly strange. The last four months could be called to life as clear as day. His childhood? His training? His old friendships and even his poor mother? All of them were gone, to his family’s horror. But to Monty it was kind of liberating – all he had was the future, and his kindness, to make his way in the world.

Pop’s Malt Shop was bustling with jitterbuggers and happy teenagers. Monty stowed Clarinda at the counter and ordered them each a malted – chocolate for him, vanilla for her. They shared a strawberry like a couple of regular lovebirds, then got up to dance.

“Are you having a good time?” he yelled over the sound of big band music blasting from the jukebox.

“I always like spending time with you,” she said, her cheeks turning pale red in surprise at the words.

But he knew just by looking into her eyes that she meant them.

 

 

****

**~~**************************************************************************~~**

 

 

Clarinda didn’t know when her feelings had pivoted toward tenderness when it came to Monty Swann. His unfailing kindness with others, and the way he took time each day out of his busy life to make her happy were parts of the transformation. Afternoons filled with milkshakes, checkers and dancing played their parts as well. It had been six months since she’d knocked Monty over, but now she was the one on her back, staring at the stars and wondering if they’d always been there.

When he presented her with a diamond ring under the table at the premiere of _Monty Rides Again,_ Uncle Steve balked.

“But he’s a good boy,” Clarinda had said, sitting at the window seat of the apartment. She watched her Uncle do the pacing for once, little flaps of stage makeup still covering his earlobes from their unsuccessful removal earlier in the afternoon. “And he’s good to me. Everything’s been going fine, Uncle Steve! I don’t see why we can’t just keep going on like this forever.”

“Because there's no such thing as forever, Clarinda, my dear. You are living on borrowed time! And _good_ to you?” Steve asked. He sighed she heard a soft inhalation – he was probably puffing away on a cigar, but she couldn't tear her gaze away from her engagement ring. “He doesn’t remember who you were, what you did. Can you really trust him? You have your reputation on the line, darling. I don’t want you to marry a boy who would turn you in without a look back.”

“I’m never looking back,” she said, using that Myrna Loy tone that brooked no arguments. Her uncle sighed.

“I’m going to pour us a couple of martinis,” he said. “The Shadow’s on at four. Want to listen with?”

“Sure,” she sighed. Anything sounded better than thinking too hard about the lies she’d told to get a swell guy like Monty into her life.

 

 

****

**~~**************************************************************************~~**

 

 

Monty’s mother threw them a luau-themed engagement party, and Clarinda was smart enough to stay quiet as the planning went on. She was a year from graduation, and her parts were getting meatier – she was in no-fooling love with a handsome, great guy too. Giving Monty’s mother a little extra space seemed fair, since she wasn’t going to be living with them and had managed to keep Clarinda's secret for ages – with dozens of threats, bitter comments and glares delivered along the way. Clarinda showed up in a sarong and tucked a big white flower into her hair. Monty’s mother looked like a basket case at her as they moved through the crowd of producers, men who offered them both the moon - Clarinda her first lead, Monty a serious role that would get him away from the teen picture rut he'd been thrust into. Her girlfriends from college fluttered around her like little birds. Her Uncle wore a tropical shirt and stared at the both of them, dry eyed and the corner of his mouth ticking up between sips of flaming rum.

They danced together, under the pale of the moon. And then the dance troupe Monty’s mother had hired entered the backyard and changed her life.

And Monty’s. One of the dancers lost their grip on the torch they’d been juggling, and it landed among the throng of onlookers. Screaming, the guests scattered – one of them knocked Monty over, and he landed with a thump, his head hitting the ground.

A sick feeling filled Clarinda. “Help!” she yelled. “Someone, help!”

His mother pushed her aside and grabbed Monty's hand. Thankfully, he didn’t stay unconscious for long - eyes fluttering, they locked right onto his mother. “Monty! Baby! Are you all right?!”

He gave a halting smile and rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah. That just threw me for a loop…is everyone all right?” he looked around frantically.

“It’s all right. Mr. Whale threw his drink on it,” Monty’s mother said.

“No harm done. It was already on fire,” Uncle Steve said. Apparently he’d switched to water when Clarinda wasn’t looking.

Monty's mother's look was pleading, desperate. “Sweetheart, do you remember me?”

He smiled. “Of course. You’re my ma. This is my engagement party…I was born in Brooklyn in 1919…" His eyes flew wide open. "Hey, whattya know about that?! My memory’s back! Hey Clarinda, my memory….” His eyes locked onto her face and his expression darkened immediately. “Wait…wait, I know you…” Monty’s eyes went wide. “You aren’t just my girlfriend – you’re that crazy dame from the movie set! The one who pushed me over!” He frowned. “Why the heck were you so nice to me?”

“I…”

“She lied to you,” said Monty’s mother. “We didn’t want you to be upset, darling. Any new shock might have done something terrible to your brain.” Triumph entered her face.

Clarinda immediately said, “that’s not true. Monty, you have to know how much I…”

His mother interrupted, “Monty doesn’t have to _know_ anything about you anymore. If you and your drunk of an uncle don’t leave this property I’m going to have you arrested!” 

Clarinda said, “how dare you! It was your idea to keep…”

She felt a large hand on her shoulder. Monty’s accusing gaze was cold enough to keep the warmth from penetrating her skin. “I think it’s time to leave, Clarinda,” Uncle Steve said.

And so Clarinda did what any good actress ought to do when faced with the horrifying, the unknowable. She pushed back her shoulders like Norma Shearer, stomped away like Joan Crawford.

And cried like Marie McDonald when she was out of sight.

 

 

****

**~~**************************************************************************~~**

 

 

Monty did what every upstanding guy with a broken heart would do in the first few weeks after ending his engagement to Clarinda: he spent days drowning his sorrows at the ice cream shop, and then moped around the set. His directors kept complaining he was ruining their shots with his puffy eyes, and his mother was frantic as she tried to get him to forget ‘that girl’ as she called Clarinda. His mom set him up with chorus girls and bit-part dames, but nothing felt the same with them. The girls were all sweet and pretty and nice, but they made his palms sweat. Unlike Clarinda.

But no one was like Clarinda.

“You’re going to rot your pretty teeth out,” Mother complained, dragging him out of the soda fountain after a full two months of his nonstop moping.

“I don’t care! They can make me teeth at the studio – the one thing they can’t do is the one thing I need.”

She sighed. “Well, if I could make a new girlfriend for you I’d have her rushed right over. Now come on, we have to go home and rehearse for that Colgate radio show!”

He yanked away from her touch. “No! Mom, it’s about time you listen to me. I know what Clarinda did was wrong, but she did it for the right reason! What you and CB did was awfully wrong, pushing Steve out of the way just so you could promote me! Well, that’s gonna stop right here!”

She stared at him in abject horror. “Montgomery Swann, you stop that nonsense!”

“I will not!” she gasped. “I love you, ma, but you’re treating me like a little baby!”

“That’s because you are my little baby!” Not what Monty wanted to hear at all. He groaned and started to rush off in the opposite direction. “Wait, where are you going?”

“To do what I should’ve done months ago,” he said, reaching into the front pocket of his pants and pulling out a thin silver band with a huge diamond. “Go find Clarinda and put this ring back on her finger. I love you, ma, but she might look like a monster to you. To me she's an angel! ”

For the first time in years, he didn’t turn around and rush back to his mother when she let out an agonized shout of outrage.

 

 

****

**~~**************************************************************************~~**

 

 

Clarinda didn’t mean to look for him, but she did. Uncle Steve told her she was being sentimental and irrational; why she’d forget about Monty the second she found some other boy to love. Her classes dragged on, and her degree seemed like a dreary commitment without a hopeful future to pin it on. The only positive thing about life these days was her studio contract, which sat in her suitcase and would soon be reneged upon.

“New York will be wonderful for us both,” he Uncle promised, as they got into the limo that would take them to the airport. He was going to be in a play, and she’d continue being his assistant, searching for the right breakthrough role, the right understudy part. It wouldn’t be as wonderful as a lazy rainy afternoon with Monty, but it was the future. She had to keep an eye on that, instead of looking back. It was better to disappear, into her shame, knowing what she had done was thoroughly wrong, than to keep hurting Monty. She had kept looking for him, but he wasn’t obligated to keep track of her in return.

But looking back at the apartment one more time, her hand on the passenger side door was what gave Monty enough time to run up the street and find them.

“I looked for hours for ya! Days! Why didn’t I think to go back to your building?” he asked himself aloud.

“I’m so sorry…”she apologized.

“I didn’t mean to…” he said.

They stared at one another for a moment before embracing, ignoring the sound of the idling limo, the shouts of his mother, her Uncle begging them to get out of the street before they died.

 

 

****

**~~**************************************************************************~~**

 

 

It was Cayman Wolf himself who married them, right there in his backyard, with a host of friends, picture people and media folks attending. When Monty slipped that ring on Clarinda’s finger, all was right again with the world. His mother sobbed and her Uncle patted her shoulders, mumbling something in her ear about how her eyes were as bright as the Bombay sapphires set in her ear bobs.

CB circled them as they danced, sinking happily into each other’s eyes, their minds dead to the sound of complaints. He would make them stars, CB said – a duo act. Monty’s star was nearing its peak, and he could well take Clarinda with him. Wouldn’t that be cute? A series of college dramas featuring mistaken identity and milkshakes, and lots of dancing and singing. It was guaranteed box office. It would make them stars even bigger than what they were, twice the size and twice the height of those billboards out on the Sunset Strip.

But Clarinda didn’t care if she didn’t become a huge star. No, she’d found everything she’d wanted in this life. She could become a nurse, perhaps – or maybe a hoofer. She would do something worthwhile with her life, to make up for the lies. But her ambitions were changing even with the movement of her feet against the solid concrete. Her uncle had earned his position among the stars, and she would find her way there without forcing the pathway open for them both.

And Monty, lost in the movement of her, vowed to continue his kindness, to forget his mother’s ambitions for him – to stand up and be as strong and fierce as Clarinda was without losing his sense of charity.

As the night and CB’s voice droned on, they made a whispered pact. Whatever came, whatever Hollywood might throw at them, they were going to take it on together, no more secrets, and no more interference from his mother.

They already knew the future was guaranteed to be blissful for them, if they kept on that singular track. 

They were already going to be immortal.


End file.
